


there will be blood (and cocoa)

by Spacedog



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Ice Skating, M/M, Minor Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Nosebleed, Stucky Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 08:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacedog/pseuds/Spacedog
Summary: sam wilson needs an excuse to go to the ice skating rink. unfortunately for him, his usual wingman, one bucky barnes, needs a little bit of help on the ice.or: a winter meet-ugly for the ages.





	there will be blood (and cocoa)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bopeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bopeep/gifts).



> super-late gift for the fantastic, incredible, tremendously-talented [bopeep](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bopeep) for the 2017 stevebucky secret santa!! if you haven't read her works, please, please, please do so. i am begging you. 
> 
> i am so, so, so sorry that this is so tremendously late. the holidays, grad school, and real life is currently and has been kicking my ass over the past few weeks. as such, this fic is un-beta'd, and if there are any glaring errors, please let me know.
> 
> this fic is mostly based off [that one new york times interview where sebastian stan briefly recounts his terrible fear of ice-skating](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/style/sebastian-stan-tonya-harding-movie.html?_r=0) and also, the opportunity for me to make stupid jokes about frozen supersoldiers during the writing process. 
> 
> hope that you enjoy it!!

“No,” is what Bucky says, the second he opens his apartment door to see one Sam Wilson, grinning and waggling his eyebrows at him, a conspicuously lumpy tote bag slung over his shoulder.

“What do you mean _no?”_ Sam replies, and he almost looks surprised, as if what Bucky was going to say next _wasn’t_ something to be completely expected. As if, when he’d texted Bucky that he was stopping by, he _wasn’t_ building up from the groundwork he’d been laying down all week.

“I mean, _no,_ Wilson,” Bucky says, in an attempt to nip Sam’s plan in the bud. “I’m not going figure-skating. I’m not going figure-skating with _you._ And I’m _especially_ not going figure-skating with you just so you can win the heart of your cute redhead.”

 _“_ Hey, come on,” Sam replies, looking and sounding the picture of innocence. If Bucky didn’t know the guy better, he might feel bad for assuming the worst of him. Fortunately, Bucky _did_ know Sam well enough to fully know that he was _full of shit._ “I just want to celebrate with the holidays with you, man. Where’s your holiday spirit?”

Bucky glances around his apartment—decorated floor-to-ceiling with lights and tinsel and all the tacky green-and-red baubles of holiday joy he could find—for dramatic effect.

“Huh,” Bucky says, his voice completely deadpan, “You know what, I think it stepped out. Maybe you’ll run into it on your walk back home.”

Sam groans, all pretense of innocence or spontaneity falling by the wayside. One of the tote bag straps slides down his shoulder, showing off the laces of a pair of black men’s ice skates. Bucky glares at them, as if they were sentient beings that could feel shame, and not shoes. “Barnes. Come _on_.”

“Sam, I am _not_ making an ass outta myself just so you can look good to that figure-skating teacher,” Bucky says, crossing his arms. He’s acutely aware that he’s pouting. Sam can make fun of him. Bucky doesn’t care. “You wanna do something else to impress her, I’ll be your wingman, no problem. But I’m _not_ letting you put me on the ice, with blades strapped to my feet. No way. No.”

Sam sighs, but he doesn’t leave, and doesn’t break eye contact with Bucky. Instead, he stares him down, the cogs in his brain turning and his gaze strong and steady. And Bucky, patient to a fault, just stands there in his doorway, arms crossed and ready to wait out the entire afternoon, if he has to. He can, has, and _will_ outlast Sam. Bucky, if nothing else, knows how to win a fight, long-term.

“Look, I didn’t want to have to do this,” Sam says eventually, because of course, _he’s_ the one to break the silence. “But remember that time you asked me to go to Times Square with you because you wanted to find some weird billboard of some obscure nerd shit or whatever, and because I’m a _great friend,_ I pushed through the summer tourist crowds to find it with you, all just so you could post it on your Instagram?”

“First of all, The Sacred Reznor is _not_ obscure,” Bucky laughs, because really, decades of multimedia sci-fi content makes it _far_ from obscure. Sam shoots him a look that clearly means, _If we knew each other in high school, I would never have sat with you, ever_. Bucky shrugs, unashamed. “Second of all, it was for contest. If I’d won, I would’ve taken you to L.A. with me. We had an agreement, so it’s not like you came with me out of _charity.”_

Sam rolls his eyes. “Regardless, Times Square is hell. And we got lost for like, an hour. So what I’m saying is, you _owe_ me one, Barnes. And I’m calling it in now.”

Bucky Barnes is two things, and more than patient to a fault, he’s loyal, and that means, more than anything, honoring his promises. And he _did_ make a promise to Sam. Maybe not overtly, but one unspoken, one of those pacts of friendships that didn’t have to be outlined, but was understood— _You gave up your afternoon for me. I’ll give up an afternoon for you._

If only Bucky’s end of the promise didn’t involve one of his irrational fears.

“Please?” Sam asks. His face is open and earnest and he _must_ have been something soft and sweet and spoiled rotten in a past life, because there’s no way Bucky could say no to those big, brown eyes.

“Fine,” Bucky sighs, spitting the word out, in spite of his better instincts. “But if some kid knocks me over and I bleed out on the ice, that’s your burden to live with.”

“Deal.”

\---

For what it’s worth, Sam doesn’t take him skating in Rockefeller Center, where he can get knifed to death by a small child’s blade-shoes, for all the world to see. The skating rink that Sam takes Bucky to is in Brooklyn, just a short train ride away from Bucky’s apartment, a permanent fixture of the neighborhood that Bucky wouldn’t have even _known_ about, if it weren’t for Sam taking him. And so they go there together, both bundled up from head to toe, from hands to neck, on a familiar route, on a familiar train, to an unfamiliar familiar place. 

Somehow, knowing he’ll get _knifed on ice_ in his home borough isn’t comforting. Not at all.

“Hey,” Sam says, bumping Bucky’s knee with his, as their train rumbles forward, “Thanks for doing this, man.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Bucky says, working hard to be nonchalant. Working hard to hide how truly, tremblingly _nervous_ he is. But try as he might, Bucky knows that all that trying will never work. It never does. Sam _works professionally_ in sensing when people aren’t as comfortable as they let on. Luckily, professional as he is, Sam doesn’t try to dredge up Bucky’s discomfort and bring it forward. He just nods, and concedes to Bucky—a small victory, but a victory, nonetheless.

“You only have to be on the ice for like, ten minutes, max,” Sam says, “Then you can run off and do—I dunno. Clean guns and listen to Johnny Cash or go to a _Comic Con_ and hook up with someone from Grindr for nerds. Or whatever it is you do on your weekends when I’m not around.”

Bucky huffs, blowing a loose strand of hair out of his face. He only did one of those things on his weekends, and hardly very often, if that. “This girl better be worth my suffering, Wilson.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Sam says, with a happy sigh. “You know, I took her to coffee the other day.”

“Yeah, I do know, you only keep telling me this story,” Bucky says, smiling a little smile. Sam shoots him a look, but there isn't real harm in it, not really.

“ _Anyway._ I took her to get coffee the other day. She’s so cute. And she’s funny. She doesn’t seem like she’d be funny, but she’s funny, in her own way. I’ve never laughed so hard as when she told me the story of when she accidentally punched Michelle Kwan.”

And that _look,_ that sheer, head-over-heels _look_ that flutters across Sam’s features, then settles there, for a good, long moment, that’s enough to convince Bucky to go forward with helping him out. Even if it _is_ forcing him to face one of his most irrational fears. 

Of course, Bucky wouldn’t admit that. Not outright, at least. 

“Glad to hear you’re not actually stalking this girl, then,” is what Bucky settles on saying, with a little snort. And just like with the dirty looks Sam gives him, there’s no heat in it. There never is. 

\---

“Natasha!”

“Sam Wilson,” she says, drawing the words out slow, a lopsided smile spreading across red-painted lips. “Just what do you think you’re doing here?”

“My pal here doesn’t know how to skate, so I thought I’d stop by. Let him learn from the best.”

“Mm-hmm,” she says, as she shakes Bucky’s hand. She isn’t looking at him, and Sam isn’t, either. He might as well be a prop. “And you _weren’t_ just looking for an excuse to see me? You _do_ know I only teach kids twelve and under, right?”

“Well, damn,” Sam says, in that smooth, _aw, shucks,_ way that he does, “Can’t even make an exception for me?”

She sizes him up, her nose scrunching a little bit as she looks up at him. “Hmm. For him, no. But for you? Perhaps.”

They look at each other for a moment, just drawn into one another. It’s like watching a Hallmark movie, except in smelly, rented shoes. Bucky’s job is all but done. He considers, for a second, asking Sam if he can go home, when the moment is shot, cut by a voice—a reminder that, however Christmas Miracle-like this moment might be, they all still occupy a reality far-removed from even the most hokey holiday movies.

“Nat,” says a voice, deep and masculine but _warm,_ and Bucky finds himself immediately drawn to it. He turns, quickly, and, suddenly, Bucky is having a Hallmark moment of his own.

Because standing there, in a pair of well-kept red ice skates and the ugliest, tackiest goddamn Christmas sweater that Bucky has ever seen, is a man if there ever were one, Bucky’s real-life dream boy—tall, blond, and handsome, with big, broad shoulders and sharp, expressive facial features that wore his thoughts for the world to read.

A Christmas Miracle, in- _fucking_ -deed.

“Yes, Rogers?” Sam’s redhead— _Natasha,_ Bucky reached to remember—says, spinning to face him, effortlessly. 

“You’ve got—” Tall, Blond, and Handsome starts, before locking eyes with Bucky, “You—oh. Uh. Hi.”

“Hi,” is all Bucky can echo, his considerable vocabulary slipping from him the second that Tall, Blond, and Handsome takes notice of him. 

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, as he moves from looking at Bucky, to _Rogers,_ and back again. Somewhere at the back of his brain, Bucky’s more rational core is screaming at him about how he’s never going to hear the end of this. Somehow, he doesn’t care.

“Steve,” says Tall, Blond, and Handsome, holding out his hand to shake. Bucky takes it, firmly. Very firmly. Tall, Blond, and Handsome has strong, soft hands with delicate, almost birdlike bones. Bucky does _not_ imagine how those hands would feel all over him.

“Buck. I—uh. My name’s Bucky. Buck,” says James Buchanan Barnes, wondering, for the first time in decades, what someone thinks about his name, and if said someone thinks it’s stupid or not. Realizing that he’ll start spiraling if he doesn’t distract himself, Bucky blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “You—uh. Um. Skate?”

Steve, all six-foot-something of him, grins, flashing a pair of perfect pearly whites. The universe was just _laughing_ at Bucky at this point. Laughing, or offering him the best Christmas gift of his entire life.

“Yeah, I skate. I’m kinda good at it, too, if I say so myself,” he says as he shifts on the ice, that pearly white grin transforming into a sly, coy smirk. The familiar burn of a shame-blush seeps onto Bucky’s cheeks, the emotional equivalent of the miserable, squelching socks that come after stepping in half-melted slush. Sam, not two feet away, wheezes and coughs, a poor mask for the laugh he’s trying to hide. “You?”

“Never skated a day in my life,” Bucky replies, sheepishly, as he looks down at the beat-up, uncomfortable skates he’s rented. Steve smiles at him, bright as the sun.

“I’m sure you’ll do great,” Steve says, without a hint of irony. His tone is kind and sincere and soft, and Bucky is completely unprepared for it. Thrown off-guard like that, he can’t come back with a friendly, sarcastic retort. And he sure as hell can’t flirt, evidenced by his _tremendous_ failure not minutes earlier. All Bucky can do is smile and let out a soft little sigh, and embrace the way his heart skips when Steve ducks his head, bashfully.

They stand like that—Bucky admiring Steve but _painfully_ at a loss for words, and Steve, looking at Bucky with interest, plain as the nose on his face—for some indeterminate amount of time, what could have been fleeting seconds or whole minutes or something in between, before Natasha cuts in, a lilt to her deadpan that, even in the _extremely_ short period of time that Bucky has known her, clearly signals _nothing but trouble_. “So. What were you saying, Rogers?”

“Oh! Right,” Steve says, with a visible, _physical_ jolt, as if he’d been caught doing something embarrassing. “We’ve got kids coming in. A birthday party. They didn’t book the rink, or anything, but the parents want to know if _Miss Natasha Romanova_ could give them a little guidance.”

Her shoulders sag, while Natasha, all the while, maintains that telltale sign of a professional—that constant perfect posture. “How old are the kids?”

Steve shrugs those broad, beautiful shoulders of his in response. “Dunno. Maybe ‘bout four or five? Real little.” 

Natasha sighs, looking put-upon, but she nods, anyway. “Fine. I’m going to talk to those parents, though. I don’t work for free.”

“Should we come back later?” Sam asks, glancing from Bucky to Natasha. It’s a way out, a way back home, without having to even so much as _touch_ the ice. It’s tempting.

 _But_ _so is Steve._

“I think we’ll be fine,” Bucky says, and Sam honest-to-God _gapes._ “I mean—so long as we stay outta the way of the kids, we should be good, right?”

“Let me remind you that you _don’t know how to skate,_ _Barnes_ ,” Sam says, an eyebrow raised. He sounds somewhere between amused and frank, as if he can’t believe what Bucky is saying, but he has no plans to pull him out, anyway. And that was fine.

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Bucky replies, sending Sam a _look,_ one that says, without so many words— _There is an approximately 209% chance that this big, beautiful blond wants to mack in the closest closet. Do not blow this for me._

Sam lets out a heavy sigh, less resigned and more bemused. “Well, alright. But remember that I let you have an out. I don’t want you holding me responsible for whatever happens when you get on the ice with the kids.”

Steve snorts, watching their exchange like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen. Natasha, already making her way to the other end of the rink, looks like she’s trying very hard to look like she’s not listening. It almost felt like they were _making room_ for him to shoot his shot. And, well—given how much he loved the holidays, Bucky wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

“Hey. You wanna be the one to teach me, then?” Bucky asks, nodding up at Steve, as he shuffles to the edge of safe ground. Just at the edge of the rink. Steve perks up and smiles at him, lighting up, as if it were Christmas Day.

“I mean, Nat was saying, we shouldn’t work for free, but I think I can make an exception,” Steve starts, smiling up at Bucky through long, long eyelashes. “I mean. Just this once. For you.”

“Great,” Bucky says, feeling warm and dumb and so, so good.

“Great,” Steve echoes, and _God,_ is that smile something.

“Great?” Sam intones, and Bucky turns to him, grinning at him, almost giddy. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. Great.”

“You gonna skate with us, Wilson?” Bucky asks, and he can _feel_ the way his own eyes are sparkling. Sam smiles, shaking his head.

“Nah, I think I’ll help Nat out. If that’s alright with her,” Sam says. Something tells Bucky that she would never _ask_ for the help, but she wouldn’t _mind_ having Sam around. “Since I don’t have to teach you anymore, and all. But I’ll be around. For moral support.”

“Sounds good,” Steve says.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Bucky jokes, as Sam pushes off into the rink, and towards Natasha, his stride as natural as walking. The way he skates, the natural flow to his movements, it might as well be _flying_ to Bucky. Anxiety bubbles up in the pit of Bucky’s stomach again, as he realizes, not for the first time that afternoon—he is _way_ out of his depth. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam says, looking back at Bucky without so much as a wobble. “Good luck, Barnes.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, only half-jokingly, “I’ll need it.”

\---

The thing about irrational fears, Bucky was quickly beginning to realize, was that their full intensity came to the forefront at two very different times: first, at the moment of realization, when Bucky realized he was going to have to confront said irrational fears, and in the moment of immersion, when he was in the thick of engaging with said fear.

Outside of those two very different moments, the fear ebbed—it seemed silly, almost, that he would be afraid of all the horrible, gory possibilities that could be on a children’s ice rink. He could experience an uncharacteristic level of ice-related confidence, because of it. He could, confidently and foolishly, agree to learn how to skate, even.

He could do all that and more, especially with the added motivation of getting to know Tall, Blond, and Handsome. But that irrational fear would always come back when he _actually_ had to confront those fears of his. That irrational fear of his would always manifest. _Always._

And in this case, it would manifest in the form of Bucky clinging, terrified, to the edge of the rink, legs splaying wildly, like Bambi trying to figure out his feet.

“I—sorry—I don’t—“ Bucky says, trying _very hard_ to keep his cool. If he didn’t want to die already, just from being on the ice, he would want to die from sheer embarrassment, of knowing that Tall, Blond, and Handsome is watching his poor reaction to facing his fears. Sure, Steve has probably seen worse reactions. But most of Steve’s clientele are children, not grown-ass men. “I’m not—I don’t. I don’t _like this,_ is what I’m saying.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Steve says, his voice gentle. Steady. Strong. It’s clear he’s done this a lot, and, to his credit, he doesn’t say it in a way that makes Bucky feel patronized. “Take my hand. I promise I won’t let you fall.”

Something warm and fuzzy flares up in Bucky’s chest as Steve locks their hands together, and for a second, he feels safe. He doesn’t think that Steve will be able to keep his promise—not through any failure of his own, but because Bucky’s luck is just _like that_ —but, in spite of his tremendous fear of falling, he feels, if only for a second, _safe._ And that’s enough for that moment. It’s enough to convince him to let go of the rail, to move forward.

“There you go,” Steve says, his voice and the strong, gentle grip on Bucky’s right hand a comforting anchor to lead Bucky through his fear and uncertainty.

“Please, please, _please_ keep me away from those kids,” Bucky hisses, eyeing a toddler wildly darting across the ice, screaming as he violently windmills his arms. Natasha skates after him, her pace leisurely. The kid might know what he’s doing, if Natasha doesn’t seem too concerned about it, but Bucky still doesn’t trust his luck around anyone short enough to trip over, _especially_ as he’s on ice.

Steve laughs, gently pulling Bucky along the perimeter of the rink. “I’ll try my best.”

“You’re my hero,” Bucky says, his voice joyless, if only because his focus is split between shuffling on the ice, keeping his grip on Steve steady, and not crashing into one of the many children darting around the rink.

“Aww, shucks,” Steve laughs, “Don’t go around calling me a hero yet. I’ve still yet to teach you how to move on your own.”

Bucky doesn’t _whine,_ per se, but the sad-sounding noise coming from the back of his throat could be described as a whine, in a matter of ways.

“Hey, it’s okay. Just—relax, alright? Stop being so stiff. Bend your knees a little. Like this,” Steve says, making an exaggerated show of bending his knees, waiting patiently for Bucky to do the same. Against his better instincts, Bucky does as Steve says, relaxing his posture as much as he can, bending in just the way that Steve asks him to, shifting his weight on the blades, ever-slightly. To Steve’s credit, Bucky stops wobbling as wildly, and, against all odds, he feels more stable on his skates. “Hey, that’s great!”

“Now what?” Bucky asks, as Steve slowly, slowly, slowly tugs them along the perimeter of the rink.

“Now, I’m gonna show you how to move. I gotta let go of you for a second, alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, alright,” Bucky says, and he’s sure that if Sam were there, he would tell Bucky not to pout. He looks too busy having the time of his life with Natasha to care about Bucky’s emotional turmoil, though, and Bucky isn’t sure if he’s grateful for that or not. He tries not to think too much about it, about how Sam is doing _just fine_ impressing an ex-figure-skating champion without him, while he’s well into making a fool out of himself in front of the most beautiful man in all of Brooklyn. Instead, he occupies himself with keeping his balance as Steve lets go of his hands, and trying not to cling _too_ desperately to the railing. 

“You okay?” Steve asks, as he pushes away from Bucky, smooth and effortless.

“Yeah,” Bucky lies. Well, half-lies. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Okay. Good. I’m gonna need you to move your feet like this, okay?” Steve says, and he pushes his feet out, making slow, gentle strokes forward, sliding further away from Bucky, towards a bit of railing, about twelve feet away. “Can you do that for me?”

“ _God_ , the things I’m doing for you,” Bucky grumbles, but he does as Steve asks, anyway. He’s wobbly and erratic, and he almost panics halfway through, but he makes it. On small, sharp, baby steps, Bucky makes it, all but collapsing into Steve as he makes his first attempts at ice-skating—at conquering his dumb, irrational fears.

\---

There’s a strange little _something_ about following Steve’s lead that just feels natural to Bucky. Maybe it’s because Steve is just good at his job, or maybe it’s because Steve’s got him so far gone that Bucky is already daydreaming of a shared apartment with little monogrammed _S + B_ throw pillows and a tiny, tiny French bulldog that they adopt together, but Bucky happily does as Steve asks, only complaining about two-thirds of the time.

Steve’s incredible command, combined with Bucky’s boastfully-uncanny ability to pick up on _anything,_ leads to Bucky making leaps and bounds over the course of the afternoon. Sure, he’s nothing _close_ to a professional, but his stride is steady and his confidence has skyrocketed. Hell, he _has_ confidence, or at least, something approximating it. Steve is a miracle worker if there ever were one, a true saint, if saints were fuckable. Bucky hadn’t even wiped out during their little impromptu training session. If Steve’s glowing praise were to be believed, he hadn’t even come _close._

Which, of course, should have warned him from the start. Because if there was one thing that Bucky learned from the brief three decades he’d been around, it was that the universe loved balance and despised a vacuum.

If there was _another_ thing that Bucky learned over his thirtysomething years, it was that young children, like people in love, were _notoriously_ prone to spinning wildly out of control.

Bucky, with all the overconfidence of someone who barely had a hold on the basics of a skill, but saw “not dying” as a successful result, let his guard down. For a brief, important moment, the constant, low-grade anxiety surrounding his entire being ebbed, replaced by a false security borne out of mastering _not falling_ and the soft, fuzzy feeling he got in his chest when Steve would smile at him.

So maybe in a different context, he would have seen the kid barreling towards him, skittering on their skates with the clear desperation of a someone trying to stop themselves from the collision course they were on. Maybe, in a different context, he would have noticed that Natasha was yelling in his direction. Maybe, in a different context, he would have been able to get out of there. Maybe, in a different context, he would have gotten the hint to _haul ass._

But he doesn’t. He’s too distracted by the way that Steve’s eyebrows crinkle when he realizes something. Unstoppable force meets _very_ movable object, and Bucky goes down, smacking his big, dumb face against the railing as he does so. And then suddenly, he’s not surprised, because of course, nature loves balance, and his day was going too well to go without something going wrong. And then suddenly, Bucky considers the worst: that Steve is not real, that he is a figment of Bucky’s hopelessly-romantic but desperately-single imagination, before realizing that the pain in his

And then suddenly, there he is.

Steve, that definitively _real_ man, leaning over Bucky like the Little Mermaid, after she’d saved that no-good flute-playing prince from a party boat drowning. Bucky was fully aware that _he_ was the no-good, flute-playing party boat prince in this situation, and it filled him with more shame than he realized he had. It figures that all of his fears would come true the second that the day started looking up. There was that cosmic balance. 

“Are you okay?” Steve asks frantically, his eyebrows still bunched in that cute way that Bucky admired, and his plush red lips looking inviting, even as they’re quirked in a frown. Bucky, on this very worst day of his life, tries to say something witty, but the pressure in his nose and the slow, warm drip of _something_ _metallic_ dribbling down his face puts a stop to that plan.

“I’m bleeding,” is what Bucky manages to put together, just as graceless as he was earlier. And as graceless he’s been the _entire day._ At least Bucky was being consistent.

“Barnes—?!” Sam calls out, and _oh, Steve is pulling Bucky back up onto his feet._ He’s rolled up his sleeves. _My, what big arms you have, Red-Nose said to the Ice-Man_. “ _Jesus Christ._ ”

“That bad?”

“Pinch your nose, Barnes,” Sam says, leading Bucky’s hands to his face. He does as he’s told, and only winces a little. It’s not broken, at least. “Let’s get him off the ice.”

Steve, Sam, and Bucky shuffle off-court and into a little break room, far from the rink proper, lit harshly by fluorescent lights. This was fitting, Bucky thought, as he looked at his hand, smudged in his own blood. He plops down in an uncomfortable plastic folding chair, and Steve tosses him a wad of paper towels for his nose. Sam does a familiar test— _follow my finger with your eyes, I’m checking for a concussion._ From the way Sam’s shoulders sag, he’s passed with flying colors.

“How’s your nose feel?” Sam asks, the concern in his voice cut down by about half.

“Not broken,” is what Bucky manages, from beneath the nest of paper towels he’s got piled on his nose. “Didn’t get any uglier, at least.”

Sam lets out a little breath—less a laugh, and more a sigh of relief in disguise. “Thank God for that.”

“Hey,” Steve says, patting Sam on the shoulder, “You wanna head back to Natasha? I can take care of him from here.”

“You sure?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says,

“That alright with you, Barnes?”

Bucky waves Sam off. “Get outta here. Go get your girl, Wilson.”

Sam mulls over his decision for a second, staring Bucky down like he’s trying to decipher some hidden meaning behind his intentions. As if it’s not clear enough that he doesn’t want to be worried over any more than he already has been, or that, more than that, he wants to be _alone with Steve._ Eventually, Sam concedes, giving Bucky a little nod. “Yeah. Okay. Alright. But keep off the ice for now, yeah?”

“Can’t tell me what to do,” Bucky retorts, a little petulantly, but when Sam shakes his head, he laughs, anyway.

“Yeah, okay. You’ll be okay,” Sam sighs, and with that, he begins to make his way out. “Take care of him, alright, Rogers?”

“Can do,” Steve says, even giving Sam a little salute. Bucky smiles, dumbly, until Sam is out of the break room, past the hallway, and far, far out of sight.

They stand there—Bucky, slumped forward in his chair, his nose plastered to a wad of scratchy paper towels, and Steve, standing beside him like some sort of wintertime guardian angel—for some time. The break room is entirely silent, save for the hum of the fridge and the scratch of paper towels as Bucky shifts the wad of scratchy paper against his nose. After some time—maybe a minute, maybe ten, maybe thirty—Bucky pulls the wad away from his nose, and finds no fresh blood. Steve crouches down at Bucky’s feet, looking up at him—probably just to check if he’s really okay, Bucky’s mind reminds the more rebellious parts of his lower body. 

“Jesus Christ, this is a lot of blood,” Bucky sniffles, as he looks at the soaked paper towel wad in his hands. He wonders, for a second, if it’s possible to hemorrhage from the nose and die that way. Given that, moments ago, there were children _staring and possibly traumatized_ by him and their respective adults are now most likely gossiping about the grown-ass man who just got wiped out by a flailing toddler, he maybe wouldn’t mind dying then and there.

Then again, having Tall, Blond, and Handsome on his knees, looking up at Bucky with big, worried eyes makes life a hell of a lot more worth living.

“You feeling okay?” Steve asks, his voice low and gentle beyond all comprehension. Those more rebellious parts of Bucky’s lower body twitch, and he struggles to keep himself rational.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and he finds himself echoing Steve’s tone, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Gimme your hand,” Steve says, and Bucky all but _jolts._

“Excuse?”

“I—uh, I got a wet wipe,” Steve says, darting his eyes away, looking _bashful._ “For, uh. Your hands. Your gloves are—uh. Pretty soaked.” 

Bucky blinks. His foot is halfway in his mouth and his gloves are caked in his own blood. How embarrassing. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Steve laughs, “I’m surprised you didn’t take them off earlier.”

_Well, pal, there’s a reason for that._

Bucky sighs, setting the wad of paper towels to the side. He’ll deal with those later. There are other things—more important things—he has to deal with than getting his blood all over Steve’s break room. “Don’t gawk, alright?”

To his credit, Steve doesn’t reply to that with, _at what?_ , and instead, he just nods. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Bucky rolls his warm polyester gloves off, revealing his not-so-secret secret: his flesh hand, on his right, and his prosthetic, on his left. Luckily for him, it’s his right hand that’s soaked. His left hand is pristine—there’s not a trace of blood on it.

“Here,” Steve says, and to his credit, he does as he was told, not gawking, not staring, barely reacting at all. He doesn’t even do the typical, _Oh, Stark Industries, cool!_ schtick that Bucky gets _every single time_ someone sees the side of his palm. All he does is put a wet wipe in Bucky’s right hand, gently rubbing away the caked-on blood _._ Bucky is relieved at Steve’s respect for his wishes, at that little act of _basic human decency,_ and though he wasn’t about to gush about someone treating him like a _person,_ he appreciated it. Chronically single as he was, Bucky’s standards weren’t so low that this action alone would pull him in deeper than he was. And Lord knows he was in _deep._

Eventually, Steve pulls away, leaving Bucky yearning for that touch again. Steve does not move from where he is crouched between Bucky’s knees, and Bucky does not move to push him back. Instead, their watch each other, equal in intensity, both waiting, presumably, for the other to say something. After a moment passes, Bucky lets out a soft, almost charmed little laugh.

“Thanks,” is all he can manage to say. Steve nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” he says.

Another silence between them. Seemingly realizing that he is still crouching at Bucky’s feet, Steve rises, perhaps a little too quickly, from the way he blinks afterward.

“Hey, uh—” he starts, and Bucky blinks up at him, watching as he works out what he wants to say. He looks unsure. They both are. Bucky chews his lower lip. It’s a bad habit of his. If she were in that room, his Ma would grab him by the ear and lecture him about looking like an animal. But from the way Steve’s eyes dart to his mouth and _linger,_ Bucky thinks that this bad habit is one he’ll be keeping.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, admiring the _blueness_ of Steve’s eyes.

“Do you—uh. Do you want cocoa?” Steve asks. It’s not what Bucky expected, and from the way that Steve looks away, it doesn’t look like it’s what _he_ expected, either. But he rolls with it. So Bucky does, too. “It’s not gonna be great, I’ve got a couple of those cocoa powder packets stowed away, if you want some.”

“You know what? I think I would like some cocoa. Thanks.”

Steve breaks out into a grin. He looks more than happy, he looks _relieved._ “Yeah! Yeah. I mean, I figured you’d want some, you know, with your day, it’d be nice.”

That’s when _Bucky_ breaks out into a grin, and as he watches Steve putter around the break room, grabbing mugs and hot cocoa mix and plastic spoons from various cabinets, he thinks about how domestic, how close it was, watching Steve make hot cocoa, just for the two of them. There was something cozy—imitate, even—about watching someone make something to be shared, even more so when there was such a clear spark, a clear energy shared. Bucky tries not to blush, hoping that he’s not overthinking it.

“Here,” Steve says, handing Bucky his mug. It’s got a deer wearing a scarf on it, its antlers draped in string lights. Bucky has the same exact one at home. “Now, this isn’t usually how I make cocoa, but I think it’ll have to do.”

“How do you make cocoa, usually?” Bucky asks, blowing steam away from the mug. He takes a sip—it’s got a thin, watery taste, but the sweetness and warmth are comforting, after what he’d been through.

“Stovetop,” Steve says, and Bucky hums. “Ma taught me how when I was real little. Can’t settle for anything else because of it.”

All of a sudden, Bucky’s heart melts at that, and not just because the image of a little, itty-bitty Steve, barely tall enough to peek above the stovetop, learning how to make hot chocolate with his mother, was _adorable._ Not that it didn’t _help._ No, Bucky’s heart melts precisely because he still prefers stovetop hot chocolate _precisely_ for the same reason that Steve does.

What a strange, serendipitous coincidence, finding the only other person under ninety in Brooklyn to like hot cocoa the way he did. All it took was foolishly thinking he could tackle his fears, and damn-near earning a broken nose. 

“That’s funny,” Bucky says, his voice low. Soft. “Me too.”

Steve looks up at him from his own mug, eyes wide and sparkling with the same revelation as Bucky had moments before “No shit.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says with a smile.

“What are the odds,” Steve laughs into his own mug, looking and sounding absolutely blown away.

Neither of them speaks after that, letting that mutual joy remain heavy in the air, less like a fog and more like the season’s first snow. Bucky looks Steve over briefly—trying to decide whether it’s worth the risk to shoot his shot—before taking another sip of his hot cocoa. It tastes sweeter, somehow, perhaps with the knowledge that, in spite of all the bullshit he had to live through to get there, the universe was trying to bring him and Steve together. Perhaps it tasted sweeter because he’d completely _fallen_ for the guy, having barely known him for an afternoon, but knowing in his _bones_ that they would be good for each other. Or perhaps it was just because, as shitty hot cocoa powder does, all the sweetness collected as sediment at the bottom of the cup, and he was only then getting to it. Either way, he takes it as a sign. Shots were meant to be shot.

“Hey, Steve?” Bucky peeps, his voice sounding, to him, just a _bit_ too unsure.

Steve looks up at him, looking entirely earnest. Bucky’s uncertainty must have flown over his head. “Yeah?”

“You’ve got—” Bucky starts, leaning in closer. “You’ve got a little something.”

“Oh?” Steve breathes, tilting the angle of his head, ever-so-slightly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, his voice low in his chest, rumbling against the frantic thrumming of his heart. This was it. _Shots were meant to be shot._ “Lemme—“

And before he knows it, he’s kissing Steve.

It’s electric, their kiss, and the two of them lean into it with equal parts desperation and lingering trepidation. The latter part falls away soon enough, and they both kiss like two men _starved_. Bucky cups Steve’s jaw in both hands—gently, his touch barely-there—and Steve does not flinch away at the cold, hard metal of his prosthetic. It’s basic decency, but Bucky has been starved of it so long, for a moment, he’s surprised.

Steve’s lips are sugar-sweet and just as soft as they look, and Bucky can’t help but nip at them when they both pull away to breathe. He’s never this forward with anyone, especially not when they’ve just met, and _absolutely_ never before even having gone on a date with said person. But the world is soft and glowing in the light of the holidays, and, in spite of—or maybe _because of_ everything leading up to their quiet, intimate time together—Bucky thinks that Steve isn’t just _anyone._ Bucky is convinced that Steve is, in the cosmic trajectory of his life, a _someone._

And that terrified and delighted him.

“I—I hate to do this, and I know this looks bad,” Steve starts, and Bucky already knows where this is going. “But I’ve gotta get back. I’m still on the clock, and I’ve already taken my break today.”

“Yeah, no, I—I get it,” Bucky says, feeling like a flustered schoolchild again, as he lets out a laugh and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. They’d been gone a long time. A _suspiciously_ long time.

“But, uh—I would—I’d love to—to do this again sometime,” Steve stutters, as if the prospect was foreign and novel and exciting for him. “Not—not the nosebleed thing. But the cocoa thing. Or coffee, even, if you’d prefer that. I, uh—I don’t really care either way. I mean, I do but the more important thing is that I—that _we_ see can see each other again.”

He looks at Bucky, unsure, his eyebrows furrowing in that cute little way that set off the catalyst to bring them back there in the first place. All Bucky can do is smile at him and take out his phone.

“Here,” Bucky says, handing Steve his phone. “Put your number in here.”

“You’ll call me?” Steve asks, looking up at Bucky as he puts slowly, slowly taps his digits into the _New Contact_ form.

“I’ll call you,” Bucky says, with a nod. Steve hands him back his phone, looking serious.

“You promise?”

“I _always_ keep my promises, Steve. Cross my heart and kiss my elbow,” Bucky says, with a seriousness that perhaps is a little _too serious_ for Steve's question about a second date. If it unsettled him, Steve doesn't let it show, instead, just _beaming_ at Bucky, practically _bouncing_ where he stands. He was radiating warmth, and Bucky would do anything he could to feel that warmth as much as he could; to _share_ that warmth with Steve. 

“God, you’re so fucking cute,” he says, before leaning in and pecking Bucky on the lips. “I’ve gotta go. Call me!”

And with that, Steve bounds out of the break room, tall, blond, and handsome, and looking for all the world, like Bucky brought him Christmas Day.

\---

Bucky doesn’t go back to the rink after that. He figures that, despite the obvious _pros_ of going back, the _cons_ far outweighed seeing Steve and touching base with Sam. Instead, he just texts Sam, letting him know he’s going home, teasing of what happened in the break room, before leaving the rink—knowing that it wouldn’t be his last time there.

When he arrives at his apartment, Bucky goes straight to his stovetop to make himself some hot chocolate, the same way his mother taught him, two and a half decades ago. It’s quick work, and when he’s done, he settles down on his couch, watching a sappy Christmas rom-com about some woman who fell in love with a prince.

It’s two hours and a movie and a half later when Bucky’s doorbell buzzes. His heart races for a second, thinking, in the most wishful of ways, that it’s Steve, that he’s there to _really_ ring in a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with Bucky, but it’s not. Of course it wouldn’t be—of course it _couldn’t_ be. But Bucky’s visitor is a welcome one, nonetheless: Sam, standing at Bucky’s doorstep, a bag from Bucky’s favorite take-out in his hand.

“Hey,” he says, looking a little bit sheepish. “Brought you this. Even asked for extra dumpling sauce, like you like.”

Bucky makes a show of eyeing him over, but he would never say no to a heartfelt apology from Sam, especially if it came with dumplings. “Alright, alright, get in here.”

They settle on the couch with their food, sprawling paper cartons and sauce packets over Bucky’s coffee table in a comfortably familiar way. They talk, as they always do, about everything. They talk over the day—Sam gushes about Natasha, and Bucky nods, interjecting with his own memories from the rink. They talk about their dinner, about Sam’s chopstick dexterity, about the way that Bucky drenches his dumplings in sauce. They even talk about the awful made-for-TV Christmas movies, ripping them apart in equal turns, but neither of them making the effort to change the channel.

And, near the end of their meal, they talk—just briefly—about Steve.

“All things considered,” Sam says, bumping his knee against Bucky’s once more, “Aren’t you glad I dragged you along?”

“Yeah,” Bucky laughs softly, shaking his head, the ache all but gone, and all but swimming with thoughts of seeing Steve again, his heart feeling as bright as string lights, as bright as New Year’s Eve in Times Square, and all the promises that the holidays held. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy (late) 2018 everyone, and i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season filled with warmth and love. in the words of the great military hero, steven grant rogers, let's kick 2018's ass.


End file.
